1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus for compressing a picture signal of a photographed moving picture and recording the compressed picture signal to a record medium and a recording method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a digital still picture camera, a reduced picture of a photographed picture is generated and recorded as an index (this reduced picture is referred to as thumbnail picture). In such a still picture camera, a thumbnail picture can be affordably generated. In the case of a moving picture camera using a tape as a record medium, thumbnail pictures can be generated using a moving picture sequence recorded on the tape. However, it is not practical to reference thumbnail pictures and search them for a desired picture because of low accessibility of the tape.
However, in a moving picture camera using a semiconductor memory as a record medium, a searching function and a top position detecting function for a desired moving picture from the recorded moving picture sequence are important functions so as to effectively use the random accessibility of the semiconductor memory. In this case, to allow the user to know the content of each moving picture sequence, it is important to generate thumbnail moving pictures. However, to do that, time and labour of the user are required.